One of the things one does when he’s forced to convert his office to a nursery (at least half of it, for the time being) is to condense things as much as possible. That means a lot of little trinkets I want to keep for sentimentality’s sake are getting stuffed into my big ol’ footlocker for safekeeping. Of course, you can’t crack the lid on a chest like that without dipping in and sighing at old memories. This is one of those.

Patrick Kellar is a friend of mine from back in the 80s, although we haven’t spoken a whole lot lately. He’s a newspaper publisher in New Castle, Indiana now, having run newspapers in Valley City and Connersville, Indiana. But in 1987-88, he was my best friend. We worked at the Dan’s in Arrowhead Plaza that summer, he had a cool little Opel GT. He’s one guy who showed me that even a 17 year old kid can put his mind to something, see how it works, and just do it. He was good at auto-mech and bodywork, savvy in politics, well-read… my kinda guy, and probably my youngest role model.

Whoops! See what looking into a box full of memories does to a guy? Back to the story. Pat had been cited for going 45 in a 35 zone on River Road, right at the point of the sign where the speed limits change. As you can imagine, he was quite put out by this. So, we set our minds to seeing how we could get out of it. We found ourselves at the law library in the legal wing of the State Capitol, looking every which way at the ND State Century Code as it pertains to traffic law. We were certain we could find some little snippet to exonerate Pat, or at least allow him to wriggle free of this citation. Nothing doing.

Then the Clerk of County Court handed Pat a Get Out of Jail Free card in the form of his summons. As you can read in the image above, Mr. Patrick Kellar had been summoned to court at 4:30 AM instead of PM! If there’s anything he remembered from the time spent up at the capitol, it’s that there is in fact that elusive snippet of Century Code waiting to be wielded in his favor. As it turns out, he found an entry that allows for a traffic case to be dismissed if the prosecution does not show up. Obviously the City Attorney wasn’t present at 4:30 in the morning; heck, he had to ring the doorbell of the courthouse repeatedly until a jailer came down! But once he did find someone, he had all the ammunition he needed. He got the name of the jailers he talked to and went home to go to bed.

Patrick could best tell the rest of the story in detail, but I do remember the Clerk of Court trying to get him to appear when he called them to request a dismissal. He politely declined, quoted the law and cited his meeting with the representatives of the Burleigh County Sheriff’s Department. The case was, in fact, dropped, and once the article you see above hit the wires, he was even getting calls from radio talk shows. He had to decline an on-air interview in some big city because it was time for him to put on his apron and bow tie and get up to Dan’s, bagging groceries. Ah, what a situation.

I don’t know if the law’s been changed; perhaps one of my curious readers will look into it. Of course, it’s only valid for traffic offenses, not criminal ones. If you’re considering trying such an escape from a ticket, just remember: you need a summons with a typo first. Somehow I doubt the Burleigh County Clerk of Court staff will let another one slip through.